To College Grads: It's A Different Economy

The economy has changed in structural ways; preparing for the old economy is a sure path to disappointment.

Millions of young people will be graduating from college over the next four years, and unfortunately, they will be entering an economy that has changed in structural ways for the worse. It's easy to blame politics or the Baby Boomers (that's like shooting fish in a barrel), but the dynamics are deeper than policy or one generation's foolish belief in endless good times and rising housing prices.

1. Getting a college degree, even in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects, no longer guarantees a job. As I have often noted, producing more graduates does not magically create jobs. The economy can only support a certain number of jobs in any one field. Producing 10 times as many graduates in that field does not create 10 times more jobs.

According to this analysis of supply, employment, and wage trends in information technology (IT) and other high-tech fields, Guestworkers in the high-skill U.S. labor market (via B.C.), only half of those graduating with STEM degrees get jobs in STEM fields.

Interestingly, 36% of IT workers do not hold a college degree, and only 24% of IT workers have a four-year college degree. As one would expect in a nation with a strong tradition of immigration, many "guest workers" (i.e. people seeking citizenship via working in the U.S.) also have degrees in the STEM fields.

This report Where are the STEM jobs? (via B.C.) predicts 8.65 million STEM jobs in the U.S. by 2018, which is a mere 6% of the current workforce of 142 million.

2. Those millions of Baby Boomers clinging to their jobs can't afford to retire, partly as a result of Federal Reserve bubble-blowing and zero-interest rates. Now that cash earns nothing, having a $300,000 nestegg of lifetime savings generates only enough interest income to pay a few bills. In the days before the Fed manipulated the economy to serve the interests of the banking cartel and the state, such a sum would earn roughly $15,000 a year at 5%.

Those days are gone, thanks entirely to the Fed, which is blowing new asset bubbles and engaging in unprecedented financial repression, distorting the entire economy in self-reinforcing negative ways.

It's easy to blame Boomers for buying into the fantasy of ever-rising real estate, but it's not a generational issue; plenty of Gen-Xers also drank the "housing never goes down" Kool-Aid. The issue is: who inflated the bubbles with lax oversight, easy money and low interest rates? The Fed and the U.S. government's housing and financial oversight agencies.

3. Many of those Boomers clinging to jobs are doing so to support you. Yes, it's a fine irony, isn't it? If you got a decent full-time job, Mom and Dad could stop sending you money for rent, gas, etc. But since millions of Boomers have to keep their jobs to be able to support their unemployed offspring, there are fewer openings than there would be if Boomer Mom and Dad could quit and retire.

4. We now have a bifurcated economy: we have what's left of the open-market economy and we have the cartel-state economy of various rentier arrangements. A rentier arrangement is one in which the input costs can keep rising due to political power/protection while the output declines.

Our economy is now dominated by rentier arrangements. This is one of the core reasons it is stagnating, the other being a parasitic, corrupt financial sector that depends on phantom collateral and accounting trickery for its survival.

Rentier arrangements include the financial sector (hated by the public but politically sacrosanct), the National Security State (you can never have enough people spying on the world, including Americans), healthcare (costs triple while the availability of care and the health of the populace decline) and education (college tuition rises 600% when adjusted for inflation but a third of the graduates learned essentially nothing).

Protected from the discipline of the market, these quasi-monopolies vacuum up an ever-increasing share of the national income while their output/yield declines. Where $200 million bought four top-line fighter aircraft a decade ago, now it buys one; we have reached the point where we can't afford our own fighter aircraft. And many in the military conclude the $200 million-each F-35 Lightning (by some estimates of full program costs, $300 million each) is an underpowered, bug-ridden dog, less capable than competitors and the aircraft it replaces at four time the cost, the F-18 E/F Super Hornet.

For decades, those entering the rentier cartels were assured of lifetime security. Get a job in healthcare or education or the defense/national security sectors, and you had it made. But these bloated rentier arrangements are bankrupting the nation.

Lacking any limit on their cost inputs, these sectors have expanded at rates far exceeding the growth rate of the economy that supports them. Healthcare once absorbed roughly 5% of the economy; now it is consuming 18% and is on track to consume 20%. Healthcare alone will bankrupt the Federal government and the economy.

As a result, employment in the rentier arrangements will be less secure going forward. Right now, the Federal government can borrow $1 trillion every year because the Fed has manipulated interest rates to zero. At some point, rates will rise (for one reason or another) and the "free money" will become costly. That will eventually limit the state's ability to fund its favored cartels and rentier arrangements with borrowed money.

5. The private-sector economy is bifurcated as well. The sprawling global corporations can draw upon talent from around the world, so competition for those big-bucks corporate jobs is fierce. Small business, under pressure from higher taxes, global competition and skyrocketing healthcare costs, cannot afford to hire anyone who can't generate a net profit for the company on day one--if they hire anyone at all.

Mentoring, on-the-job training, all of that good stuff--everybody wants somebody else to have given you that. They want you productive on day one.

6. The older generations will have to adjust to demographic and financial realities. That the promises made for Social Security and Medicare cannot be kept is "obvious," but so politically dangerous that we cannot discuss this truth openly. As I have maintained for years (Boomers, Prepare to Fall on Your Swords June 2005), the Baby Boomers will have to let go of the impossible promises made to them by an expansive Savior State. If they refuse to do so voluntarily, then the younger generations will have to insist via political means.

Or we can passively do nothing and watch the whole entitlement system implode. That works, too, but it's messier than just dealing with demographic and financial realities.

7. There are two sets of laws now: one for the Elites and the state, and one for the rest of us. If you wonder why small business growth has shriveled, look no further than the over-regulated, legalistic thicket that awaits anyone starting or operating a business. It no longer makes sense to have employees; contract workers or arrangements between sole proprietors is the only way left to do business for most of us.

The rule of law has been undermined by corruption, political favoritism, and mindless regulation. That systemic failure leads to stagnation and cynicism.

8. We are a free-lance nation. Many people bemoan this, as they want everyone to have the security to be unproductive and never be fired. But that's the problem with the entire rentier cartel-state economy: cartels are skimming operations that are immune to market discipline or any limits on their cost structure. Incompetence has no cost in cartels, and neither does inefficiency.

These bloated fiefdoms and cartels keep growing while the economy stagnates, increasing their share of the national income at the expense of the rest of the economy (and there is an opportunity cost to this malinvestment--what else could we have done with these trillions squandered on rentier arrangements?). The cartel-state economy will collapse under its own weight.

There are opportunities, but they require a deep understanding of risk and security. A livelihood with day-to-day low-level insecurity and volatility is actually far more stable and secure than the cartel-state one that claims to be guaranteed.

The burdens of Fed manipulation and the cartel-state rentier arrangements will come home to roost between 2015-2017. Those who are willing to seek livelihoods in the non-cartel economy will likely have more security and satisfaction than those who believed that joining a rentier arrangement was a secure career.

There is a price to joining a parasitic rentier arrangement, a loss of integrity, agency and independence. Complicity in an unsustainable neofeudal society has a cost.

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Now if you had invested your education money in stocks, you would be partying in Vegas. It is a rigged-casino economy and that is all you need to know. The rest you can learn by yourself for free on the internet.

7. There are two sets of laws now: one for the Elites and the state, and one for the rest of us. If you wonder why small business growth has shriveled, look no further than the over-regulated, legalistic thicket.

At the most fundamental level, this is the problem, and it cannot be allowed to persist.

People deserve what they get. They voted for G.W. Bush, a verifiable moron, whose English skill is no par with my gardener. Then they voted for Obama, the most twisted hypocrite that came out of the delusional elite class. Until they're enlightened, they will not be saved. And if they are not enlightened, they will perish. The laws of nature supercede the laws of man.

The silver lining is that when masses go down, they'll take the elite with them.

Yes, we're overdue for a coronal mass ejection (CME) event that will take out most of the transformers on the energized portion of the grid. And we don't have enough replacements so the grid could be down for months or longer assuming we can remanufacture them. Our only hope is enough time to deliberately shut the grid down when solar weather suggests an CME is going to occur. Faradays law of magnetic induction can be a bitch, but without it we wouldn't have a grid.

Funny how the "elite" politicians always managed to have bunkers built for them...from taxpayer funds of course. You can bet your last $500 million dollar Federal Reserve Note that the Jamie Dimons of the world have their own escape pods, ala Dr. Evil, primed and ready for departure.

People deserve what they get. They voted for G.W. Bush, a verifiable moron, whose English skill is no par with my gardener. Then they voted for Obama, the most twisted hypocrite that came out of the delusional elite class.

The problem is clearly systemic - it doesn't make much difference who you vote for.

Some candidates are more insane than others, but it's minor shades of difference.

The problem I have with this statement is not the assessment of the GW and Obama, it the other question - who were we allowed to vote for by the DNC and RNC?

Face it, Obama wwas chosen for his race, and Hillary in 2008 was competing based on her sex. The DNC wanted a candidate with lots of teflon - question anything they do, and you're labeled racist/sexist.

5% of college is a worthy educational value. 95% is just partying and a total waste of both time and money. The moment you wake up and learn how you educate yourself you don't need a degree. Like all fiat its just a piece of paper.

So....like...ummm....Dude...ummm...does this mean that I can correctly conclude that Charlie Robinson and Barrack Obama were classmates at Columbia?

Doug Casey makes interesting remarks about having been classmates with Bill Clinton at Georgetown.

Some recently deceased English commentator was at Cambridge (?) with Bill Clinton dueing the later's Rhodes Schloar years. Said what he couldn't get into his bloodstream through inhalation, he more than made up for with brownies. Apparently he really couldn't inhale.

“'The president-elect is coming into office at a moment when there is upheaval in many parts of the world simultaneously,' Kissinger responded. 'You have India, Pakistan; you have the jihadist movement. So he can’t really say there is one problem, that it’s the most important one. But he can give new impetus to American foreign policy partly because the reception of him is so extraordinary around the world. His task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period when, really, a new world order can be created. It’s a great opportunity, it isn’t just a crisis.'”

-Henry Kissinger, who not coincidentally employed young Barack for a while.

I have 3 even though I can’t spell worth a damn.My kids both have JD’s and they are doing well.They also have student loans out the wazoo and if the cash flow stops, within ninety days they will have to move back in with me.

I was privileged to go to a hgih end prep school in the mid '70s. I received a great education. I was shocked getting o colleage (Ivy League) that my classmates really didn't know squat. I taught half of my dorm mates calculus. Oh the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I studied engineering. I took a few econ courses as electives and thought it was conjured BS. Many is the hour I have spent since trying to get my mind around the concept of the velocity of money and its implications. You know...I have $10 and buy your beans, and you buy them back for $10 then the GDP has bumped up $20. It's BS. You read about these famous investors who say things like..."I had the advantage of never having had and econ course," or "after I unlearned it all, I became successful." You can get a real economics education by going to the von Mises website and reading all of their great texts and publications for free as opposed to Samuelson's 100th edition of Econ 101 for about...what...$200 from the college bookstore. Keynes only made it big because he taught that you could get something for nothing and the politicians wanted to hear that. If you question Keynes in the halls of ivy econ world, you may as well swallow some cyanide. Accounting is worth study. Then you could have sussed out Enron, and Solyndra.

I became technically literate because of my formal engineering education. I know i can pick up a book and bootstrap myself into technical worlds unknown. (It would be easier if the computer geeks learned how to write, but I digress.) This is incredibly valuable.

Bottom line is that there are certain skills you need in life. That paper might get you in the door, but if you don't have the goods then you get hosed. Most of these skills you should have learned by the tenth grade - and in good free public schools. We have somehow stretched that out eight years to a graduate degree and $100K. The bottom line for me is that you shouldn't be allowed to enter college unless you can do the NPV of what you propose to studt and come to the proper conclusion. You should also have to succesfully refute Doug Caseys arguments against going to colege as a prerequisite for admission.

The price of college will crash, and then you will see some real wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst the faculty and administration - especially those handling student loans.

Well written ChanceIs. My observations and educational path is similar to yours. Self-taught in econ which includes lectures, letters and long thoughtful conversations with smart friends who are at different parts of the learning curve. In fact, economics has sort of been the door into libertarianism from regular conservatism for me.

I would offer an alternative to your view as to why Keynes was popular. The governments of the world jumped at Keynes because he essentially argues that you need an elite to direct or even control an economy. Their is a pavlovian response to things like the "Commanding Heights" of an economy that appeal to the naturally arrogant and power thirsty political leadership. If you read Von Mises you know it is the delusion of government genius.

My boss is getting read to send his girls to college and we discussed many of these issues. I think one has to be circumspect about these things and not just push kids into college or think it automatically leads anywhere. There is the other side of the issue in which academically gifted students often do not perform all that well in real life. It is a very different environment and skill set that makes ofr success in private life versus the highly controlled environment of academia.

Interesting thoughts on Keynes and elitism. He was certainly part of the "in crowd."

I get beaucoup mileage out of the current von Mises school. There has been a recent shake-up over Menger and the concept of value being subjective. I need to study more before commenting further. The GoldMoney folks are great as well. They often collaborate. Here is a GoldMoney interview with Harry C. Veryser. He teaches econ in Detroit. Says (about 2/3 in) that he teaches Keynesianism as a formaility so his students have the exposure but cautions them against taking it seriously. GoldMoney is wonderful. They come out with a few podcasts a week. I am on their tickler and take them in on the treadmill at the gym.

We have a lot of prejudices in our society. One is that the college degree is a requirement. My dad was a doc. One of his closest friends from the second half of his life might not have finished high school - definitely no college. He founded a trucking company and did much better financially than my dad did. He used to give my dad parts of his art collection because he thought so much of him. I inherited a few and keep them out on display. Medicine.....trucking...it is how you play the game.

In actuality, one really can't read Zero Hedge without significant education. I first ran into Heisenberg in my jumior year high school chemistry class. You hear Schrodinger's cat, Prisoner's dilemna, Nash equilibrium, etc here. That is sophisticated stuff. It applies. If it isn't correct, it is at least important to understand that TBTB believe in it - or don't understand/believe in it - which is maybe why we are in such a splendid fix today.

Very true that an education doesn't buy you a guaranteed seat in the top 1%. I went to a high-end prep school in the 70's and 80's where I formed the life long-friendships I still have today. I've kept up with them and so have a pretty good sampling of how our paths turned out.

I happen to know about a dozen of them who are now very wealthy (which I define as $20 mil on up). Two of them are self-made, having dropped out of college, never graduated, and started companies. The other 10 inherited their wealth, and most of them added significantly to their wealth mostly in the last five years by virtue of simply being invested in stocks and other dividend/interest generating financial assets. Those who inherited their wealth never finished college or, if they did, barely did so and from a second rate institution never going further. They pretty much all retired or became "investment managers" right out of college and never worked.

Those of us without large family money or without the entrepreneurial streak, like me, are the ones that loaded up on advanced degrees. Without exception, all of us secured good-paying middle class to upper middle class positions as college professors, senior executives in government, bank officers, accountants, docs, etc.. Still, none of us has "hit it big," although we enjoy incomes in the low six-figures for the most part. The truly big bucks went to those with no or limited college educations.

So my personal experience bears out what you are saying. Formal education really has nothing to do with achieving the big bucks. The big bucks go to those who start successful businesses or inherit their wealth, neither path having much to do with educational achievement.

Nice post, Law97. Your experience agrees with my instincts and observations over time. It is risk taking, situation analyis, the ability to grasp an opportunity and run with it that seems to work. I come from a blue collar middle class family and the thinking is similar to what you write about your background. I actually call it the 9-5 mentality. The idea is you get good work. You give good work/productivity. You work hard, keep your head down, become good at what you do and maybe advance by degrees in a job or profession. It is not bad. It is completely honorable but it is also opposite to making the financial breakthroughs to wealth in real life. It is actually more of an employee rather than employer mindset, even if you become a doctor. It also makes you subject to the decisions of others and your fate depends on their judgements. Not good in my experience.

The entrepreneurs are really a class of people to be admired. Not just for success and money but the attributes to get new things off the ground and going...so all the employee types can then become productive and better off in their schemes.

I do not think college in any way prepares you be successful in an entrepreneurial way. It just exposes you to new things (good and bad) and perhaps thinking and reasoning to some degree. However, it is still a protected and flitered environment, not at all like the real world.

my personal advice would be to go European way - work couple of years in field, and then go and study because you will know how hard money comes, you will know more in which field you want to study and no, we have enough "14th century romances" literature majors.

And you have to calculate if your field will give you any good return with degree.

JustObserving, I agree with you but add a finer point to it for consideration. It is not so much a rigged game but my observation is that the entire economy of the world is now a political economy. A political economy is a controlled one. That is where your "rigged" observation comes in to play. Actually, it is worse than rigged. You have genuinely stupid people who genuinely believe they are smart making decisions based on proveably false economic theorems and of course self interest.

To me, all investing in anything is at risk these days. What a prime minister, central banker or EU leader says now will do more to the markets than the P/E ratios or demand forecasts for any particular company. At any moment, any change in policy could blow a hole in the world economy. Just have Ben Bernanke withdraw QE for any reason. Let him and others quit artificially suppressing the bond market. I could see a scenario where bonds, stock, and commodities all crash simultaneously which tends not to happen in a free economy. Change government policies and payments and you can crash healthcare, defense, college, agriculture, energy, and many others. All these sectors are dependent on government "drugs" if you will.

Invest anywhere you want. Invest with inflationary or deflationary expectations. It actually doesn't matter. Governments can drive any scenario and leave your portfolio shattered. What matters is the next official pronouncement, announcement or monetary scheme. Worse, none of it is really based on honesty, the public interest or even sound financial thinking. It is based on political survival and political profit.

I personally think we are all screwed until the great reset and until we stop once and for all believing in the genius of government and the "great man" that will save us.

Ladies and gentlemen look around and trust your lying eyes.Every strip mall and shopping center in the country is dotted with empty store fronts.Every neighborhood is blighted with distressed homes and vacant houses.Just like in the 1920’s, our sky lines are graced with grand structures that were built on dashed dreams and failed expectations that will never be utilized to full capacity.Every year we drive less.

There has been a slam down of paper gold that resulted in a corresponding flight into precious metals and hard assets.Hard money is moving out of vaults and into private hands.

The bubble of borrowing has now moved to student loans enslaving a whole generation to a debt that must be paid down with part time jobs.

Half the population is either directly or indirectly subsidized by some kind of federal program.

Listen to what you are hearing.Eighty four billion a month is being conjured out of thin air just to keep the government’s doors open.

Home Land Security has grown to a standing army of almost four hundred thousand if you list the private contractors in the overall count.HLS has ordered enough ammunition to fight a twenty year war and has taken delivery of 2700 armored vehicles designed to fight urban wars on our city streets.

The Constitution has been suspended on the federal level.

The majority of Americans distrust their government. Congress is more despised than cockroaches and lawyers.A third of the population expects a revolution.

American citizens now buy enough guns and ammunition to outfit a World War II size army every nine days.

We have exceeded critical mass.The collapse is taking place all around us.

If I picked my music collection based on political affiliations I would have a pretty sad collection. The beauty of punk is the lyrical content comes full circle on a long enough time line, just ask the "occupy" crowd.

The populace will never win a hand to hand combat against forces that are overwelmingly more powerful and better equiped. The only way to end the current system and start a new one is by starving the financial beast until it comes crumbling down on it's own weight (like rome). Spend less, downsize, get rid of a car, get rd of the TV, walk more, buy local, cut out fast food and soda and buy gold, buy silver. We do this and we have more real wealth, screw the energy cartel, screw the healthcare cartel, screw the media cartel, screw the financial cartel, and screw the insurance cartel all at once. Seven simple steps to recovery. I am doing my part. No more fast food, soda, tv, purchased gold and silver, walk more (just got to the high range of my ideal Body mass index - still need some more work), i buy from local business owners as often as i can (it is difficult, conglomerates have put a lot of mom and pop's out of business). The car is difficult as i'm i sales but i try to use mass transit when going into NYC instead of driving.

Afghanistan is an excellent recent example. The Russians were driven out and the US is also still having fits with them. Guerrilla warfare tactics have been utilized throughout history to overcome superior force.

Most of Eastern Europe fell with the wall. The Polish leadership knew the Polish Army would never attack Polish people. General Jarezelski folded and he was not killed by the citizens after the govt folded.

The one hold out was Cheuchescu (sp?) in Romania. He was a hated MF'er and wanted to go down swinging. The Romania Army made short work of his preatorian guard.

The problem is when the communists folded in east europe - nothing improved that much. Some banksters scum in the shadows.

Boston? F Boston? The city lockdown? They could sustain that maybe 24 hours. When the cities start burning then those police state MF'ers will be running home to protect their big screen, home, boat and family.

How many guns are Americans buying every day since the islamo usurper stole his first election? 55,000 new guns per day? Go luck DHS.

F***ing bring it. Stop being pussies folks. Unplug the TV and Hollywood for good or you are part of the problem. Boycott their newspapers, theme parks, cruise ships (Disney). Starve the beast.

If you are feeling a little....well....like needing a cup of Schadenfreude this afternoon, YouTube has about a dozen videos of the execution of the Ceausecus. Soup to nuts. Arrival for trial in an armoured car, brief trial, hands bound, actual bullets flying obscured by smoke, corpses with blood and bullet holes afterwards, corpses on display, live feed into bars with cheering patrons, nice public burial with the masses being allowed to throw in a handful of dirt. Amazingly graphic. Am very surprised that YouTube allows something this grisly. I think that maybe the Romanians might be paying a premium to keep this stuff up - so nobody will forget. The Romanians outlawed capital punishment immediately after the executions.

So will the DHS private Praetorian army fire on their own fellow citizens? I doubt it but I am worried. I pray it never comes to that. But still. Look at the glee in the faces of the crowds in the bars with the telecast. People will only stand for so much tyranny. Then as Gerald Celente is so fond of saying..."When people have nothing to lose, they lose it."

I watched most of it in the past but need to watch it again. It is stunning.

Nicolae was a really evil MF'er. I think children and babies infected with AIDS or some really horrific story. I mean this f**k was like Vlad the Impaler (Dracula).

What is really weird is in the east bloc you had Czechoslovakia. After the fall of the wall they peacefully split - unlike ****ing Abe Lincoln who killed 1.1 million people to "keep the union together." The hide that genocide with - freed the slave BS even though in the north they still had slaves.

The Czech's are among my favorite people. I think two of the best places in the world to live might be Czech Republic and Chile. I think the Czech's allowed East Germans to escape to West Germany which helped make it fall apart. Sadly - the same scum evil european bankster families lurk in the shadows like the vampires they are. Nothing changes.

Back to DHS and Romania. When things like this happen - you get a tipping polint where things change rapidly like in Poland. Ceaucescu thought he could hang on and his praetorian guard would save him. Ghadaffi had his African mercenaries though our own British/USSA O Muslim Brotherhood/Al Qeada/BP/Rothschild/Mossad are worse than Ghadaffi. Syria is different as Assad sucks but he is 10x better than "the rebels" aka O's pals.

One reason why I loathe TV and Hollywood is they will be the last ones trying to save the corruption by brainwashing the masses.

I will say that a political upheaval and revolution is far different from a conventional war or any single battle.

I will also say that in the USA there would be a bit of "Chaos Theory" in that you don't really know who will side with whom in an all out conflagration. You see country Sheriffs who refuse to do gun bans and confiscation. You cannot be sure the local division commander would side with an all out occupation of his own homeland. I suggest that if a collapse happens no one can know how it will play out.

"I am doing my part. No more fast food, soda, tv, purchased gold and silver, walk more (just got to the high range of my ideal Body mass index - still need some more work), i buy from local business owners as often as i can"

Me too, we do the same. We realized the food system is here to make a profit not take of care of us or our family. Oh wait that sounds like the financial system...

I often thought about starting a strike to send the message to the government that it had to stop deficit spending. The concept was to go to work one day - say May Day - and refuse pay. You know - no income or social security tax going to the government for that day. It would have goten their attention and shown that people were serious. I have given up on that concept since the CongressPukes print $1 trillion annually and think nothing of it.

Now where the "revolution" might have success is in withdrawing all of their deposits from the TBTFs. That would get some attntion.

The sad reality might be that the government would tell you to deposit your 401(k) with JP Morgan. Apparently we are about to be told to put them into Treasuries. The FDIC wouldn't care either since it is so far into fantasy land. Why not just backdate deposit and mark them to 1995 levels. There. Everything is all better.

It might help if your retirement fund managers (e.g. CALPERS) sold all of its JP Morgan stock. That would ge some attention. It would also probably get dead fund managers.

You are right. A strkke wouldn't work. However, redeeming your FRNs for lawful money would get their attention. Just deposit your checks like normal but restrict the endorsement with "Redeemed for lawful money pursuant to 12 USC 411". Don't let them fractional reserve lend against your money. Crush the banks balance sheet with lawful money. It is just that easy.

I am not so sureG.H.One rouge cop spooked the Los Angeles police to the point that they were shooting up their own civilians.For those few days, it was extremely dangerous to drive a pickup truck in L.A. Two men with one handgun and two boxes of fireworks put the city of Boston under martial law.God forbid that a hundred determined men should take a similar path.We would be paralyzed as a nation.

While Homeland Security was gearing up to fight a war on southern, white, Christian, conservatives, we find out that the Saudis and the Russians were warning us about the pressure cooker bombers well in advance.Inasmuch as they were not the politically correct villains we were looking for, those that we empowered to protect us turned a deaf ear.Nothing in the Boston Marathon fiasco inspires confidence in the behemoth we have built to make us safe. If anything, it instills fear and apprehension in the body politic.No one can look at the images of families being rousted out of their homes at gun point without remembering similar scenes from Nazi Germany.Even Bill Maher was shaken by what he saw.

I have walked a good many of the battlefields of the civil war.I am a serious student of that war.What I have read scares the hell out of me. No war we have fought to date has been as lethal to the body of the nation. Anyone who longs for that kind of thing is blindly wishing to open the gates of hell.

Still, injustice will be tolerated only so long.Almost every cognoscente person has come to the conclusion the game is rigged.Our politicians, our law enforcement, our judicial system are all seen as part of the same corrupt system.Every day it seems that the prudent are punished for their prudence while avarice runs wild. For the man on the street, everything is out of balance.

We have perhaps one or two more election cycles to begin the return to the rule of law and restore balance.We are currently suffering a crisis in confidence.Continued failure of the political process will topple the system.

Dorner was a bit of a joke too. They had video of him before he lost his job. He was running and any normal police force would have fired him because he was overweight and out of shape. He could barely run.

I stopped watch TV and Hollywood's shit years ago but followed a little of the media crap onthe net. He was made out to be Rambo because he was black. If he had been white he would have been demonized 24x7.

Boston was disturbing but good luck sustaining that if riots break out. A lock down would last 24 hours when the crap starts reaching the agents/cops neighbor and families. Or the overtime stops. The LA PD fled the riots. Korean merchants did not flee.

The system is totally corrupt along with the muslim usurper. This is why guns are flying off the shelves. People know it is going to fall apart and it may be soon.

Bill Maher et al voted for this. We need boiled rope and lamp posts. Crisis in confidence? We are way past that unless people are sheep watching TV.

Come out here to Long Island and hit up the Cheesecake factory and Roosevelt field mall, then stop by Loew's and HD. All jam packed. Every place. The ponzi is alive and well in certain parts. It's gonna pop though.

The ponzi IS the economy in New York and much of the Northeast- when money from nowhere stops getting pumped into NYC its going to get knocked flat- beyond the bullshit financial sector what is actually produced there?

I would add that globalization has created a race to the bottom on wages for workers in the West while enriching a few a the top, thus destroying the middle class of the West and further cementing a neo-feudal model. In fact, I think many of the bullet points of this article came into existence because creation of the housing bubble, money printing and free spending on $300M/each planes are the only things that have kept some semblance of normalcy in our economy. Of course those measures -- like Tony Montana burying his head in a pile of coke just before the big shoot out -- are not sustainable.

You have forgotten basic morals. The adults in the '50s wold never have put up with this BS. I remember reading of the late Robert Bork's book where he related that he was almost in tears to see a pile of books burning on campus circa 1965. Nelson Rockefeller might have become president in 1964 except for the fact that he ditched his wife. That doesn't seem to matter anymore - witness Newt Gingrich. Face it. The hippies of the '60s are now in charge.

Bork believed that there was no such thing as a corporation that is too big or too integrated. He felt that anti-trust laws were for suckers. How has that worked out for the world? And by the "world" I don't mean Jamie Dimon, though he would if he were reading this.

LTER, regarding the jobs being exported abroad, if you're suggesting tariffs are the solution, then that is plain wrong. Those jobs are going abroad because of 'free trade' int'l agreements like NAFTA that actually are rent-seeking legislation for the big multinationals and are used to facilitate the NWO along with WTO and World Bank. Free trade happens organically, and does not need to be 'institutionalized.' People pursue profits, and things would be shipped to find new markets, and there is division of labor and people can voluntarily trade and be wealthier for it. Regarding tariffs, on the other hand, 'when goods stop crossing borders soldiers will.'

The other thing is that it's not a good place to do business here. Taxes super high, Obama regulatory team breathing down your neck, ACA, etc.

And of course the Fed has allowed people to be numb to the reality that they have lived beyond their means, because in reality many are only keeping it together with these subprime teaser rates and a bailout mentality here such as not having to pay mortgages. This allows them to further leverage and obtain credit to go waste on Chinese goods.

And 'anti-trust' legislation is a waste of time, too. At the end of the day in a free market it's who provides the good/service at the best price. Economies of scale is a good thing, and eventually if there is a way, a competitor will come. The true monopolies are those of government entities.

And regarding wages, some people's work just plain and simple isn't worth all that much. There are technological breakthroughs and that should mean more people going into harder fields to innovate further, solving harder problems that would enhance std. of living even more. A person's labor is worth what the market will bear.

I believe it was caused by government plain and simple. Federal Reserve's cheap money blew the bubble, and pols believed in this whole 'homeownership' thing needing .govt support, and so people were able to get access to credit when it wasn't warranted, as the banks didn't care about the lending stds. as they were underwritten by Fannie, Freddie. And there was extortion, too, as those communist pols were making them make loans in some cases to these poor people in urban neighborhoods.

The banking crisis was because they were able for so long to call MBS 'assets', and just the whole TBTF mentality in general of 'so what if these go under', as the banks are shareholders in the private Fed, so they knew they'd be bailed out anyway.

Crony capitalism is the blame. The Fed spiked the punch bowl, and then instead of making people live with the consequences it was nothing but bailouts.

Regulation does not do anything. In a free market there would be no need for a glass-steagall even because depositors wouldn't put their money with risk speculative banks. Savings cannot be subject to frac-reserve banking.

Fraud has existed as long as humans have existed. But I know I'm not going to convince you so I'll just leave you again to tell me where on earth your desired system has ever worked in all of humanity. As a footnote, I will mention that the system I propose - a small Constitutional government with regulations that keep the wolves out of the hen house - worked quite well once before it was taken over by the wolves to whom you wish to hand they keys.

I repeatedly call out the revolving door between the regulat-ors and regulat-ed. It is corrupt. Those bankers will have to live with themselves, and I know where I stand, which is with Jesus, who threw the money-changers out of the temple.

I'm just saying this system allows for election influence by these elites who elect their own, when I want to be in charge of my own life and not be subject to pols or a tyrannizing majority as is status quo. I am an anarcho-capitalist. It seemed that many pols in the nation's founding at least feared tyranny so much they didn't want to go work in DC, had to be persuaded, like GW, but when there they were statesmen for liberty many of them, instead of interventionist who WANT to be elected now as the whole system is a sham.

Apparently democracy, the last hope of government lovers, has failed, as have all other forms of government.

It is interesting that your appeal to emotion - keep the wolves out of the hen house - is based on your observing how an almost totally government run system works. Government fails at everything it attempts, except things that are harmful, yet you project those results onto a system that is opposite that of government.

Government has little or no incentive to succeed at anything that matters to the public, while the market must succeed to survive. One uses force while the other must please.

Maybe someday you will realize that the wolves are in the hen house BECAUSE of government, not because of the absence of government.

College doesn't have to cost that much. I took all my basics at a community college for about $1,000 per sememster full-time and another 2 years at a state university for about $4,000 per semester. The total cost was about $20,000. That was about 14 years ago. Community college prices are still cheap today. My employer paid for 75% of the cost of my two grad degrees. Parents need to put their foot down. If the kids want ot go to an expensive private college, tell them to get a scholarship. Otherwise, go to state U and spend the summers taking basic courses at the community college.

There is more. They purposely FU the real estate system by allowing anyone to get a mortgage circa 2006 Dem Congress. Credit analysis for borrowers was thrown out essentially because it was racist.

They caused the whole real estate market to distort and to take down the banks for their friends to profit. I.E. who profited by the destruction of Lehman and Bear? Goldman and Morgan Stanley or JP Morgan?

The rationale for globalization was that specialization would create efficiency and increase total value and increased global economic activity. We don't know if this is true or if we would have been better off with being 'self sufficient' economy. All of us have our favorite scapegoats but maybe it is just the nature of our situation -- too many mouths and everyone competing to get a bigger piece of the slice. For sure there is no simple fix and we would all struggle to fix it if we were in power -- not being an apologist for TPTB but just sharing a sad conclusion that I have come to. If you are in power, you have to be seen as making an attempt to keep the game going -- for sure, saying that let the system collapse will get you kicked out of power or worse.

I understand your point, but I don't see it as an either/or. Where we were lead astray is by the idea that "free trade" means allowing companies like Apple to build huge industrial plants in corrupt countries with no environmental rules where they can hire virtual slave labor to make their products. Of course if you're a technocrat in China this a great relationship. Your population is slowly brought into the industrial age while you enrich yourself, steal the technology of the West, buy and build a modern military, etc. If you are an executive at Apple this is also a great relationship. And the MIC loves this arrangement because China will build itself up and become the next big cold war enemy that requires endless military spending. For the population of the country that lost the manufacturing jobs and are now shopping their college degree to fast-food joints, not so much.

I am not sure I would romanticize loss of these polluting health hazardous manufacturing jobs. Reality is there are very few life sustaining jobs that we should mandatorily retain -- growing food, defence, energy. All other jobs are in some way optional and is make work in nature -- society has encouraged creation of these non-essential jobs to hopefully enrich our lives and to keep people engaged who have been displaced (by technology) from farming and other essential activities. So, we can be selective about which jobs to retain and which jobs can go.

It is all very well to say that if we had not exported these manufacturing jobs, the Chinese would still be stone ages. It would also not have allowed us to consume as much of the rest of world's natural resources as we have been doing for the last 40 - 50 years thanks to overconsumption enabled by reserve currency. Unfortunately, we live in an interdepedent system. And while it may not be apparent while we self flagellate, we got better part of the deal for the last 50 years -- just take a trip to most places in the rest of the world and you will see how much better off we are.

If technology were the root cause, then Apple wouldn't need to hire humans in China either. Ironically, technology also allows the building of things without massive pollution. It just costs more, so if you're a CEO of some big company it is a no brainer to build in countries where you don't have that cost. Technology will cause a continued shift in employment away from untrained labor, but building all of those factories in China caused an artifically rapid displacement at the expense of the workers in the West for the benefit of the few. Meanwhile, the displacement rewarded short-sighted policy from both corporate and political leaders (the 40-50 years of overconsumption of which you speak). If you grew up in America in the 50's, you had a great run. If you're a kid today, the future looks pretty bleak unless you happen to rise to the very top which is statistically unlikely.

Things change. Yes, the 50s was a glorious period because we had our production capacity coming out of WWII whereas the rest of the world had been decimated.

The reality is that the current system has been to our advantage -- compare our wasteful lifestyle with pretty much anyone in other parts of the world. It would be disengenous to claim that we got the small end of the stick.

I don't really buy the "rest of the world was decimated" argument. It doesn't take 30 years to build a factory. What we had in the 50s was a booming industrial economy in which CEOs made 20x as much as their employees, and where banks made money by making sound loans to entrepeneurs who hired people. Today we have an outsourced economy where CEOs make hundreds or thousands as times as much, and where crony capitalists like Jamie Dimon make money betting on credit default swaps because his downside risk is backed by the taxpayer. We certainly agree with one another that this model was great in the short-term. My argument is that we would have been much better off in the long-term with a different model and the chickens are on their way home.

Things change. Yes, the 50s was a glorious period because we had our production capacity coming out of WWII whereas the rest of the world had been decimated.

The reality is that the current system has been to our advantage -- compare our wasteful lifestyle with pretty much anyone in other parts of the world. It would be disengenous to claim that we got the small end of the stick.

I agree there was rapid displacement of mfg workers but it was on the cards. Could not stave the demands of the rest of the world and still cling to the reserve currency -- if you have the reserve currency by it's very nature you have to permit the rest of the world to be able to earn it. Can't have it both ways.

I agree about the benefits of outsourcing has accumulated mainly to the 1%ers. That is our problem of not being able to ensure that the gains don't go only to a small minority. To blame globalization for our inability to spread the gains is incorrect.

Reserve Currency always destroys empires. However the US debased its reserve currency by waging war in Vietnam PLUS The Great Society which broke the Bretton Woods System as the US flooded Asia with Dollars and exported inflation to Europe.

You cannot be a Reserve Currency and wage major wars - Britain tried it twice and broke itself and its empire. The US simply mopped up the gold and the markets as the British tried to live the American Consumerist Dream after 1957. The US then went mad in the 1960s and lived the good life with high Public Spending and low taxes and huge trade deficits

But productive people only work when they can make billions of dollars for their trouble and we don't need a middle class, just slaves. Haven't you been paying attention to what has worked so well since the '80's?

+1 to offset the inevitable pile of downvotes that is forthcoming for your accurate statement of history.

The last time the OPERATIONAL BUDGET of the US was balanced was 1957 - the year I was born. Marginal of 97% sucked, but we had a war debts to pay off. JFK cut taaxes and the economy took off. One wonders if it wasn't in part due to the fact that debt service was way down. Then we had LBJ and Nixon deficit spending for Viet Nam and the Great Society. Jimmy Carter paid the price for that inflation which Johnson/Nixon created. Doesn't mean that Jimmy wasn't an idiot.

Hillary wants to be Prez in '16. That should be just about the time that "W"s anti-terror foreign war inflation is coming home to roost. I hope she feels up to it. Poor Jimmy just had to deal with stagflation. Hillary could get contraflation. That would be economic contraction and inflation. Good thing DHS bought all of those hollow points before the price went up. Hmmm. I wonder if DHS could lease them out - kind of the way the Fed leases out gold. I see a futures market in hollow point being born. Hey!!!! Its money. Store of wealth, divisible (if you are talking by the caseload), unit of account, etc, etc, etc.

I wasn't a boy scout, but I admire their philosophy - always leaving a place better than you found it. I suppose that I will be kicked off of this planet in the next 25 years. I will feel sad that things will undoubtably be much worse than when I made my debut. I have tried.

The rationale for globalization was because American unions built shitty cars and other shit and consumers got tired of it. The once that happened, cheap shit from CHina flooded in because wages started to go down in real terms (enter wal mart) and corps made a killing. J6P was supposed to get rich day trading and "investing". Remember DOW 36000?

"3. Many of those Boomers clinging to jobs are doing so to support you. Yes, it's a fine irony, isn't it? If you got a decent full-time job, Mom and Dad could stop sending you money for rent, gas, etc. But since millions of Boomers have to keep their jobs to be able to support their unemployed offspring, there are fewer openings than there would be if Boomer Mom and Dad could quit and retire."

The fact is that most of the boomers are still working because they haven't paid off their mortgage, are drowning in debt, and have $50K in their retirement accounts. They were relying on the booming housing markets to retire. As a CPA, I've seen people 65 years old with over $500,000 in debt and no assets other than their cars, furniture, and clothes.

College wise, Don't waste your time unless you can get into a TOP school. Otherwise go to a CHEAP state school just to be able to check "YES" for having a Bachelors. Under no circumstances should you go to an expensive private school nowadays(unless it's TOP).

And everyone should learn salesmanship( Carnegie,etc) so you can maybe build a business or not be labeled overhead when the LBO comes and Private Equity Shysters rape and pillage the company.

I would modify slightly. Go to a top school, but only if you are willing to network and make contacts with your teachers and fellow students that you can leverage into post-graduate opportunities. The actual education will be the same at the Ivy League schools. If you're not willing to do that or can't get in to the top schools, then go to community college for two years, and then go to the best in-state public university to get your degree.

Sutton - good advice overall but not so sure about some of your recommendations regarding professions. Petroleum Engineering - overcrowded field in a shrinking industry. Accounting - there's an app for that, or soon will be. Plumbing - I just replaced a toilet last weekend following video instructions on the internet. Piece of cake. Carpentry - I do all my own rough work and barter with a retired neighbor for finish work. Also more and more modular houses going up in my area. Electrician - maybe if you live in an area where there are zoning regs. I live in the country and am free to do my own electrical work. Internet again - everything you need to know. Masonry - I love working with rock, but I think that there will be fewer and fewer people willing to pay for stonemasons when they can use pre-cast and DIY. Roofing - again, modular building technology will eliminate this profession PDQ - even after hurricanes. Salesmanship? Who's buying?

I would suggest that time devoted to mastering the skills needed for independent living off the grid might be a better choice for a lot of young people, except that most of them couldn't imagine a life without their iPhone and Starbucks, so that option is a no-go for most.

Hey - I know. Join the military and become a skilled killer. Except - I'll bet they're working on an app for that too.

The petroleum field is expanding, especially with fracking, horizontal drilling and deep-sea drilling.

You have bookkeepers, financial accountants, auditors, IT auditors, internal auditors, tax accountants etc. You would be surprised at how badly people fuck up their books with accounting software when they have no clue what they're doing. GIGO. There are no apps or software to do accounting without the people with knowledge to use the software and understand the chart of accounts.

Plumbing is alot more than replacing a toilet. Besides, most people can't even do that. I can fix some of the plumbing in my home, but there are many problems I can't fix. Same with electrical and plumbing. I would guess that 90% of the population live in areas with zoning regs, so master electricians will be needed.

As long as there are people who don't want to or can't do manual labor, there will be demand for blue collar jobs. Do you expect women or old people to do stone work or electrical? How about businesses?

Back in FDR days they called it the "chicken in every pot" model. If you keep the working age poor fed and housed and cell phoned, they don't rise up. Then give them access to illegal drugs and round up the trouble makers and put them in prison. This is why neither party will EVER let go of the welfare state/prison industrial complex model. Old infirm people don't revolt.

The problem with crony capitalism is that you eventually run out of other people's money. But if you buy enough hollow point bullets, drones, armored police vehicles, microwave heat emitting "crowd control" devices, etc., who gives a shit.

It's about stealing from anybody who can "take it" and paying off those that the establishment fears will riot.

Even as they cut income, though, from the elderly whites, the medical industry, run on debt, will attempt to keep them alive forever on machines.

The game is to destroy the dignity of the white middle class. Why? Boredom and Jewish resentment, maybe. But once the white middle class is destroyed, the country itself goes with it. Nobody seems to understand this.

Well, you gotta get a degree if you want to work at McDonalds. One affordable alternative is to go to Canada! Get it in 3 years with less than half the cost, many US grants and loans will work. Just have to work on the "Would you like fries with that, eh?"

Once you understand the mechancis of the rentier semi-cartelized economy, you realize how insidious and how fucking bullshit the left-right, Democrat-Republican political dichotomy is. Both sides offer narratives to distract their constituencies (e.g., abortion, racism, socialism, welfare, big government) all the while each party pursues policies that only strengthen centralized power to perpetuate the cartels.

I work in the techology sector and I call BS on this statement "This report Where are the STEM jobs? (via B.C.) predicts 8.65 million STEM jobs in the U.S. by 2018, which is a mere 6% of the current workforce of 142 million." Absolute nonsense. Even if we farm our US jobs somewhere else you still need technical people to oversee that work.

U.S. companies are already shipping in "technical people" from overseas because they demand lower salaries. Pretty soon they won't need to ship them from anywhere -- they will just hire locally in the new host country. The status quo is only the status quo until it isn't. Ask the buggy whip designer.

I work in the technology sector and I can tell you that wages are half what they would be if we weren't importing M.A.s from IIT by the boatload, and management is very rapidly becoming dominated by people who learned English as a second language. Moreover, they create third-world working conditions, because that is what they understand to be best practices. I am extremely well-paid by U.S. standards, top 2%, but the number of people who can claw their way into my tier is vanishingly small. Edumacation is not going to do it.

True Dat.. I spent 2 decades in information technology and realized it was an empty game.

I went to work using my hands, at least at the end of the day there is a tangible product, not obsolete code to bec abandoned in a year.

Information technology is a great way to placate the intelligent into thinking they are creating something, while wasting their prime years and not thinking about true nature of the beast they are feeding.

Just like the Iphone is the perfect surviellance device, you pay for the privilege of being spyed on and you are forced by peer pressure and a patina of cool to put your head into the honey trap and let the killer bees feast on your brain.

Anyone who lived in the analog world before this digital nightmare will understand what life was like without an electronic leg iron and the expectation that you are available to your employer 24/7 without benefit of extra compensation or consent.

computers are the perfect trap, to steal your time, money, relationships and life. We live as strangers with the veneer of society embedded in our pysche by our participation in mass media.

Information systems provide damn little information to the benefit of the society as a whole and costs humanity its humanity.

I am glad I was able to walk away. I owe it to my father who told me as a child, save you money so you can tell them to kiss your ass when you get older.

The jobs that created the American Dream still exist; but to get them you need to go Mexico, or India, or wherever they are outsourced away from the American homeland. A crushing truth-telling expose book details how offshoring jobs not only decimates the opportunities for Americans but details how the truth has been covered up and misrepresented by those who benefit.

Is this the natural progression of a global economy? NO. It is being shown to be a purposeful dismantling of American free enterprise by the enemies of the American system and freedom. Here was the mistake the baby boomers made – allowing the Federal Reserve to continue controlling the flow of banking money to multinational corporations whose allegiance was to no nation, to no principle, and to no God but themselves.

The Offshore Outsourcing of American Jobs: A Greater Threat Than Terrorism By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts (excerpts)

Global Research, May 02, 2013

…Now comes an important new book, Outsourcing America, published by the American Management Association. The authors, two brothers, Ron and Anil Hira, are experts on the subject. One is a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and the other is professor at Simon Fraser University… The Hira brothers succeed in their task of interjecting harsh reality where delusion has ruled.

In what might be an underestimate, a University of California study concludes that 14 million white-collar jobs are vulnerable to being outsourced offshore. These are not only call-center operators, customer service and back-office jobs, but also information technology, accounting, architecture, advanced engineering design, news reporting, stock analysis, and medical and legal services. The authors note that these are the jobs of the American Dream, the jobs of upward mobility that generate the bulk of the tax revenues that fund our education, health, infrastructure, and social security systems.

The loss of these jobs “is fool’s gold for companies.” Corporate America’s short-term mentality, stemming from bonuses tied to quarterly results, is causing US companies to lose not only their best employees-their human capital-but also the consumers who buy their products. Employees displaced by foreigners and left unemployed or in lower paid work have a reduced presence in the consumer market. They provide fewer retirement savings for new investment.

… Nothink economists assume that new, better jobs are on the way for displaced Americans, but no economists can identify these jobs. The authors point out that “the track record for the re-employment of displaced US workers is abysmal: “The Department of Labor reports that more than one in three workers who are displaced remains unemployed, and many of those who are lucky enough to find jobs take major pay cuts. Many former manufacturing workers who were displaced a decade ago because of manufacturing that went offshore took training courses and found jobs in the information technology sector. They are now facing the unenviable situation of having their second career disappear overseas.”

American economists are so inattentive to outsourcing’s perils that they fail to realize that the same incentive that leads to the outsourcing of one tradable good or service holds for all tradable goods and services. In the 21st century the US economy has only been able to create jobs in nontradable domestic services-the hallmark of a third world labor force.

Prior to the advent of offshore outsourcing, US employees were shielded against low wage foreign labor. Americans worked with more capital and better technology, and their higher productivity protected their higher wages.

Outsourcing forces Americans to “compete head-to-head with foreign workers” by “undermining US workers’ primary competitive advantage over foreign workers: their physical presence in the US” and “by providing those overseas workers with the same technologies.”

The result is a lose-lose situation for American employees, American businesses, and the American government. Outsourcing has brought about record unemployment in engineering fields and a major drop in university enrollments in technical and scientific disciplines. Even many of the remaining jobs are being filled by lower paid foreigners brought in on H-1b and L-1 visas. American employees are discharged after being forced to train their foreign replacements.

US corporations justify their offshore operations as essential to gain a foothold in emerging Asian markets. The Hira brothers believe this is self-delusion. “There is no evidence that they will be able to outcompete local Chinese and Indian companies, who are very rapidly assimilating the technology and know-how from the local US plants. In fact, studies show that Indian IT companies have been consistently outcompeting their US counterparts, even in US markets. Thus, it is time for CEOs to start thinking about whether they are fine with their own jobs being outsourced as well.” …

As someone who is very familiar of the labor relations area in many large corporations, I can tell you that most employees are looked upon as a labor commodity. The majority of individual employees including highly paid "professionals" have very little salary or job leverage.

Employment at will, H1B hiring, domestic as well as foreign project outsourcing, company fit in the selection process have all contributed to the demise of quality jobs that companies want American workers to fill.

Most leaders in Americxan corporations, have no idea what goes on at the hiring levels in their organizations. They simply "parrot" what their politically corrent HR departments tell them. Our current U.S. human capital sitiuation will not improve, because there are systemic obstecles that must be overcome. I am not seeing even the slightest hint that corporate or political leaders are even aware of what these obstecles are that need to change.

Funny that people have figured out that it is OK to get your cars and other products from around the globe, but not to get certain forms of healthcare (surgery) or education (U degree) from outside the US.

Oh, wait, you need to not mind leaving your county, and maybe even learn a foreign language. Talking trash or talking back does not make you bilingual. And your Americun high school degree must actually be good enough to be acceptable in other countries. /s

Not funny at all. Cars from other countries have to meet US safety and EPA standards.

Going to another country to have surgery could result in death or serious injury and you may have no legal recourse. I'm sure a heart transplant would be cheaper in Nigeria or Pakistan, but I highly value my life. As for China, I don't trust them. India might be ok and there are people going there for surgery. Still, you have no legal recourse. I would consider them as a last resort.

What makes you think that a college degree from another country would be cheaper or even accepted by companies in the US? I'm sure they would be accepted from top universities from around the world, but they wouldn't be cheaper. Getting a degree from a third world country might not impress the HR department or hiring managers.

If you want first world service, then you will have to pay first world prices. There's no such thing as a free lunch for us peons.

LOL. Sure, I know what you mean... Those crappy German and Japanese cars. What do they know about economy, efficiency or quality? Compared to fine Detroit cars that the whole world craves. Not!

You can go to whatever backwater you want, but I'd get my surgery done in the EU, UK, Canada, Austria, Brazil, Chile, Bermuda. Or even Russia or Cuba. Then you wouldn't have to sue anyone (for a job done properly, the FIRST time). And for those of you who dislike/distrust Jewish doctors, chances are you won't find one there. The only party left to sue then, is the class-action lawsuit against the Americun insurance companies and hospitals, who've been ripping you off all these years.

I agree with you on the value of state universities. The 'fancy' schools serve to give you a better Rollodex (with the Elite), and a not much better education.

Having said that, a degree from the G20 countries will kick the ass of a degree from the Americun degree mills. Case in point, all the Chinese and Indian grads who are winning the job competition over the grads from the US junk colleges.

It comes down to having a global perspective, a global education and global work experience. People who are too scared or brainwashed to leave "home", get what they deserve. And they get to bitch & moan.

The correlation between College degree and GDP growth was a result of the Arms Race with the USSR when they discovered the Russians were producing so many engineers and rockets. Sputnik spurred the US to expand College education and funding before it was diverted to liberal arts and away from STEM. The huge spending on Pentagon and NASA contracts boosted the economy at the same time as demand for graduates increased and before the Great Society sucked the liberal arts grads into the Bureaucracy

Oh definitely this is all a ponzi $cheme and who is really winning? Are we? We give most of our waking hours to our careers to pay for over priced homes and if the lights go out what are our homes really worth? Think what basic need that hasn't been capitalized on? I think we are just starting to hear the folks scream "fire" but the media chooses to ignores it - they have vested interest to keep the status quo crap flowing. I was about to launch a business but I think it is economically futile to any launch any business right now just based on timing and the fundamentals - which I think the FED and central banks are deliberately ignoring fundmentals and manipulating commidities, meanwhile quietly buying gold like crazy..... hhhhhmmmm I wonder why?

While some people will benefit from credentials, the statistical case is very very bad. In the future there will be no jobs, and everyone will have graduate degrees. Consequently, having a graduate degree will be of no material competetive benefit. Jobs are a rapidly obsolescing concept. Automation will eliminate most jobs. The remaining jobs will be the rent-seeking gerrymandered product of regulatory capture. No decent person would want such a job.